


Not As It Seams

by OnAWhim



Series: A Stitch in Time [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But Not Sorry At All Because Cloaky Must Be Appreciated, Cloaky Forever, Other, Sewing Puns, Sorry We Finally Made a Sequel, The Cloak, The Cloak Returns, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28543851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnAWhim/pseuds/OnAWhim
Summary: In the aftermath of Endgame, what is Stephen thinking? (He's thinking about his cloak.)Follow along with the Strange Adventures of Stephen and his Cloak for the ensuing hijinks and hilarity, with just a dash of sweetness.
Relationships: Cloak of Levitation & Stephen Strange, Stephen Strange & Cloak, Stephen Strange & Cloak of Levitation, Stephen Strange & The Cloak of Levitation, Stephen Strange/Cloak of Levitation
Series: A Stitch in Time [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091123
Kudos: 13





	1. Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written with someone who knows about The Strange Fanfic Adventures of Doctor Stephen Strange: A Post-It Note Story. You know who you are.
> 
> Thank you to all of you who have bookmarked and/or left kudos and comments on A Tear In the Fabric over the past two and a half years. You kept Cloaky at the forefront of our minds and we're grateful for your enthusiasm.

It had been weeks since the final battle against Thanos. Everything went well, all things considered. Thanos was defeated, his armies leveled, and the Infinity Stones were at last destroyed. 

So why couldn’t Stephen Strange sleep?

It was illogical. On the whole, the encounter had gone as well - even better - than could be expected. The one victorious future he had seen that day on Titan came to fruition out of millions of possible failures. He had seen it happen, then, but he hadn’t realized how it would affect him. 

He and Tony had not been friends. Strange even found the other man to be thoroughly conceited - a feat which was, to him, quite astounding. Yet there was something about the other man that had been familiar; a resemblance to his own former self that was a little too close for comfort. A reminder of what he had been, what he could have been. 

And now he was dead. 

As a surgeon, Stephen was no stranger to death. Sometimes a patient has experienced too much trauma to survive a potentially life-saving surgery. Sometimes, no matter how perfectly you perform, you can’t save everyone. Sometimes you make mistakes. Well, not Dr. Strange - obviously - but that’s besides the point. 

And yet this very profession made him feel like a crusader against death. Someone who would step in when the end outstretched its cold hand and with great precision cut it away. He had been a lifesaver far before he went to Kamar-taj, even if his reasons for doing so weren’t the purest. Now he just did it in a cloak. But he couldn’t save Tony. He shouldn’t have, either. Tony had to die. In his final moments, Tony was likely at peace knowing that his sacrifice meant everyone else on Earth could live their lives. The thought only brought a fraction of a release to the tightness in Stephen’s chest.

The Cloak of Levitation seemed to be one of his only comforts in the post-Thanos times. Whenever Stephen stirred restlessly in bed, he would feel a heavy weight and warmth settle on top of the blankets and look up to find the cloak there. It would lay there for hours, adding a little extra pressure that was comfortably reminiscent of a hug, and Stephen would finally be able to sleep. The cloak’s presence became such a regular occurrence that after a few days it began coming to bed with him, completely dropping all pretense that Stephen might be able to sleep through the night alone. It was embarrassing, but Stephen supposed it was foolish to be embarrassed around a piece of outerwear - no matter how sentient it appeared to be.

~~~~~~~

Their pattern continued for some time. Without the Infinity Stones to guard, and in the relatively peaceful wake of Thanos’ destruction, Stephen found himself spending most of his time in the Sanctum Sanctorum with little to do. Before long, he had read all the books in the library that interested him - and some that didn’t, become quite proficient with throwing his sling ring into increasingly farther away bins, and taught Wong the basics of basketball (that is, until this resulted in the shattering of an artifact’s glass case). Cruelly, he thought, it seemed his life vacillated wildly between “urgent impending apocalypse” and “why even bother getting out of bed today”. The last few weeks had tended toward the latter. 

It was on one of these dull days while sipping his tea that Stephen noticed the cloak floating around the Sanctum and became curious. 

“Uhm, cloak?” he started, uncertain. 

The cloak turned toward him with a shrug of the shoulders that looked inquisitive.

“What do you do on days like this?” The question immediately sounded idiotic. It’s a cloak, of course it doesn’t do anything. 

The cloak paused for a moment before swooping upward and taking a turn around the room. Stephen understood.

“You just levitate around?”

The cloak paused and made an exaggerated nodding motion with its collar. It then levitated over to one of the artifact cases and began rubbing it down with a piece of its fabric.

“And clean.”

The cloak nodded again before levitating over to Stephen, waving one end of its fabric up and down in a repetitive motion. Stephen smiled.

“And play basketball.” Another nod. 

A new question popped into Stephen’s head. “Cloak - uhm, actually. Do you have a name? Is there something I should call you besides just ‘cloak’?”

The cloak continued hovering motionlessly. For a moment, Stephen was worried he had upset the cloak in some way, but after a moment it shrugged its shoulders. I wonder if anyone has ever asked it that? Stephen thought to himself. 

“Hmm. Alright, then. How about …” he cast his mind about for a relatively non-offensive name. “Barry?”

The cloak’s collar leaned back and twisted to the side. Stephen could almost imagine a horrified gasp coming from the cloth. 

“Ok, fine.” Stephen held up his hands in placation, “Not Barry. You’re not exactly giving me a lot to work with here.” He considered the cloak for another moment. “At the risk of sounding like a child … what about just ‘Cloaky’? It’s accurate, at the very least. Slightly more personal than ‘the cloak’.”

The cloak seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding its collar vigorously. It swept into the air one more and did a flip of elation before returning to Stephen’s side. The man couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the spectacle.

“Cloaky it is, I suppose,” and he settled back comfortably to finish his tea.


	2. Sew Little to Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch anyone?

Stephen finally got stir crazy. He needed to get out. Do literally anything but sit in the Sanctum and stew in his own boring version of PTSD, even if it was just going out for sandwiches. 

Wong of course (conveniently) doesn’t believe in money, and Cloaky, as a piece of clothing, was also unable to chip in. Typical. Leave the unemployed defender of our reality to pick up the tab. Shouldn’t being the Sorcerer Supreme have a complimentary lunch perk?

Stephen mused over his woes as he descended the staircase before stopping in front of the door. He looked at it for a moment, his heart beginning to race. The tremors that constantly run through his hands suddenly transitioned into violent shaking. Stephen clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Come on,” he whispered to himself, frustrated. “Just a walk down the street. No big deal. No tremendous peril hiding behind every garbage can.” His hands, it seemed, were not comforted by his rationalization. Stephen clenched his fists so tightly to stop the shaking that he felt his tendons strain under the tension. He let out a hiss of pain and anger and continued to stare at the door defiantly. “Don’t be a child,” he chastised himself. 

Stephen heard a rustle of fabric behind him and turned to see Cloaky hovering over the middle of the staircase. It seemed to be watching him - if such a thing was, strictly speaking, possible. 

“I’m just going now,” Stephen called out to it a little defensively. “Just … leaving.” He gave lame wave in Cloaky’s direction and turned back to the door, his heart racing. He still didn’t move. Damn it.

The sound of rustling fabric approached closer until Stephen saw the cloak hovering by his side. Its collar was tilted slightly and the man could tell he was being questioned. Stephen sighed. No point in being embarrassed in front of a cloak. Cloaky had always shown it had a personality, but Stephen had never felt judged by it. Maybe whatever personality inhabited the cloak wasn’t capable of judgement in the same way as humans. Maybe it was just kind. 

“I haven’t left the Sanctum since ... “ Stephen paused, searching for the correct traumatic experience from that day to pinpoint his troubles to, “since we died.”

That was it, wasn’t it? Stephen hadn’t thought about it like that before, let alone put it into words. After half the universe came back to life everyone was so focused on Tony and Natasha’s sacrifice that no one had even mentioned the fact that they all died as well. It felt like only a moment, to them, but it was still a death. Stephen closed his eyes and remembered the feeling of being slowly unmade by magic that even he could not fully comprehend. And then to come back just as suddenly, but to have missed 5 years of the world? Everything was wrong beyond those doors. Everyone in the world was traumatized by either losing half their loved ones out of the blue or having died themselves. Nothing was alright. He didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to get to know this world in grief.

His hands were badly shaking again as his eyes bored into the wood of the doors. He felt a piece of cloth against his fingers and looked over to see Cloaky wrapping the edge of itself around his hand. It was comforting, and Stephen couldn’t help but smile a little as his hands slowly trembled less and less. 

“Well, I can’t wear you out there. I’ll look like a crazy person. Or worse, a cosplayer.”

Cloaky tightened its grip around Stephen’s hand and began shaking it up and down, then pointed the other end of its fabric towards the coat rack. Oh. I’m an idiot.

“Right, magic. I have magic. Sorcerer Supreme, and all.” Stephen shook his head before addressing Cloaky. “What look do you think we should go for?”

Cloaky floated over to the coat rack and began leafing through the different options. It wrapped its fabric around the sleeve of a stylishly worn leather jacket. 

“Guess we’re going for ‘badass’ on this deli trip.” Stephen began concentrating on his will, made the correct motions for the spell, and watched as Cloaky’s red fabric began growing darker and shorter until a leather jacket floated before him. It wasn’t actually a leather jacket now, of course - it only seemed to be. Stephen nodded in approval and Cloaky made a turn before settling on Stephen’s shoulders, offering a comforting squeeze. 

Stephen took a deep breath and pushed forward on the door, stepping into a world barely familiar to him, but with a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Strange: Cloaky loves comments!
> 
> *Cloaky nods while hovering*

**Author's Note:**

> To everyone, thanks for reading. Leave a comment and who knows... maybe the adventures of Cloaky will continue!


End file.
